To A Beautiful Woman

SURELY, dame Nature made you in some dream

Of old-world women--Chriemhild, or bright

Aslauga, or Boadicea fierce and fair,

Or Berengaria as she rose, her lips

Yet ruddy from the poison that anoints

Her memory still, the queen of queenly wives.

I marvel, who will crown you wife, you grand

And goodly creature! who will mount supreme

The empty chariot of your maiden heart,

Curb the strong will that leaps and foams and chafes

Still masterless, and guide you safely home

Unto the golden gate, where quiet sits

Grave Matronhood, with gracious, loving eyes.

What eyes you have, you wild gazelle o' the plain,

You fierce hind of the forest! now they flash,

Now glow, now in their own dark down-dropt shade

Conceal themselves a moment, as some thought,

Too brief to be a feeling, flits across

The April cloudland of your careless soul--

There--that light laugh--and 't is full sun--full day.

Would I could paint you, line by line, ere Time

Touches the gorgeous picture! your ripe mouth,

Your white arched throat, your stature like to Saul's

Among his brethren, yet so fitly framed

In such harmonious symmetry, we say

As of a cedar among common trees

Never "How tall!" but only "O how fair!"

Who made you fair? moulded you in the shape

That poets dream of; sent you forth to men

His caligraph inscribed on every curve

Of your brave form?

Is it written on your soul?

--I know not.

Woman, upon whom is laid

Heaven's own sign-manual, Beauty, mock heaven not!

Reverence thy loveliness--the outward type

Of things we understand not, nor behold

But as in a glass, darkly; wear it thou

With awful gladness, grave humility,

That not contemns, nor boasts, nor is ashamed,

But lifts its face up prayerfully to heaven,--

"Thou who hast made me, make me worthy Thee!"